«And pick your successor?»
«I have influence. The Council, of course, has the final disposition.»
«Then I think you’re more dangerous.»
«I do not deny it.»
30
The trip to Montego was far easier than the circuitous march from the Martha Brae. To begin with, most of the journey was by vehicle.
Malcolm, his robes replaced by Savile Row clothing, led Alexander around the lake to the southeast, where they were met by a runner who took them to the base of a mountain cliff, hidden by jungle. A steel lift, whose thick chains were concealed by mountain rocks, carried them up the enormous precipice to a second runner, who placed them in a small tram, which was transported by cable on a path below the skyline of the forest.
At the end of the cable ride, a third runner took them through a series of deep caves, identified by Malcolm as the Quick Step Grotto. He told Alex that the Quick Step was named for seventeenth-century buccaneers who raced from Bluefield’s Bay overland to bury treasure at the bottom of the deep pools within the caves. The other derivation—the one many believed to be more appropriate—was that if a traveler did not watch his feet, he could easily slip and plummet into a crevice. Injury was certain, death not impossible.
McAuliff stayed close to the runner, his flashlight beamed at the rocky darkness in front of him.
Out of the caves, they proceeded through a short stretch of jungle to the first definable road they had seen. The runner activated a portable radio; ten minutes later a Land Rover came out of the pitch-black hollows from the west and the runner bid them good-bye.
The rugged vehicle traveled over a crisscross pattern of back country roads, the driver keeping his engine as quiet as possible, coasting on descending hills, shutting off his headlights whenever they approached a populated area. The drive lasted a half hour. They passed through the Maroon village of Accompong and swung south several miles to a flat stretch of grassland.
In the darkness, on the field’s edge, a small airplane was rolled out from under a camouflage of fern and acacia. It was a two-seater Comanche; they climbed in, and Malcolm took the controls.
«This is the only difficult leg of the trip,» he said as they taxied for takeoff. «We must fly close to the ground to avoid interior radar. Unfortunately, so do the ganja aircraft, the drug smugglers. But we will worry less about the authorities than we will about collision.»
Without incident, but not without sighting several ganja planes, they landed on the grounds of an outlying farm, southwest of Unity Hall. From there it was a fifteen-minute ride into Montego Bay.
«It would arouse suspicions for us to stay in the exclusively black section of the town. You, for your skin, me for my speech and my clothes. And tomorrow we must have mobility in the white areas.»
They drove to the Cornwall Beach Hotel and registered ten minutes apart. Reservations had been made for adjoining but not connecting rooms.
It was two o’clock in the morning, and McAuliff fell into bed exhausted. He had not slept in forty-eight hours. And yet, for a very long time, sleep did not come.
He thought about so many things. The brilliant, lonely, awkward James Ferguson and his sudden departure to the Craft Foundation. Defection, really. Without explanation. Alex hoped Craft was Jimbo-mon’s solution. For he would never be trusted again.
And of the sweetly charming Jensens … up to their so-respectable chins in the manipulations of Dunstone, Limited.
Of the «charismatic leader» Charles Whitehall, waiting to ride «nigger-Pompey’s horse» through Victoria Park.
Whitehall was no match for the Halidon. The Tribe of Acquaba would not tolerate him.
Nor did the lessons of Acquaba include the violence of Lawrence, the boy-man giant … successor to Barak Moore. Lawrence’s «revolution» would not come to pass. Not the way he conceived it.
Alex wondered about Sam Tucker. Tuck, the gnarled rocklike force of stability. Would Sam find what he was looking for in Jamaica? For surely he was looking.
But most of all McAuliff thought about Alison. Of her lovely half laugh and her clear blue eyes and the calm acceptance that was her understanding. How very much he loved her.
He wondered, as his consciousness drifted into the gray, blank void that was sleep, if they would have a life together.
After the madness.
If he was alive.
If they were alive.
He had left a wake-up call for 6:45. Quarter to twelve, London time. Noon. For the Halidon.
The coffee arrived in seven minutes. Eight minutes to twelve. The telephone rang three minutes later. Five minutes to noon, London time. It was Malcolm, and he was not in his hotel room. He was at the Associated Press Bureau, Montego Bay office, on St. James Street. He wanted to make sure that Alex was up and had his radio on. Perhaps his television set as well.
McAuliff had both instruments on.
Malcolm the Halidonite would call him later.
At three minutes to seven—twelve, London time—there was a rapid knocking on his hotel door. Alexander was startled. Malcolm had said nothing about visitors; no one knew he was in Montego Bay. He approached the door.
«Yes?»
The words from the other side of the wood were spoken hesitantly, in a deep, familiar voice.
«Is that you … McAuliff?»
And instantly Alexander understood. The symmetry, the timing was extraordinary; only extraordinary minds could conceive and execute such a symbolic coup.
He opened the door.
R. C. Hammond, British Intelligence, stood in the corridor, his slender frame rigid, his face an expression of suppressed shock.
«Good God. It is you. I didn’t believe him. Your signals from the river … There was nothing irregular, nothing at all!»
«That,» said Alex, «is about as disastrous a judgment as I’ve ever heard.»
«They dragged me out of my rooms in Kingston before daylight. Drove me up into the hills—»
«And flew you to Montego,» completed McAuliff, looking at his watch. «Come in, Hammond. We’ve got a minute and fifteen seconds to go.»
«For what?»
«We’ll both find out.»
The lilting, high-pitched Caribbean voice on the radio proclaimed over the music the hour of seven in the «sunlight paradise of Montego Bay.» The picture on the television set was a sudden fade-in shot of a long expanse of white beach … a photograph. The announcer, in overly Anglicized tones, was extolling the virtues of «our island life» and welcoming «alla visitors from the cold climate,» pointing out immediately that there was a blizzard in New York.
Twelve o’clock London time.
Nothing unusual.
Nothing.
Hammond stood by the window, looking out at the blue-green waters of the bay. He was silent; his anger was the fury of a man who had lost control because he did not know the moves his opponents were making. And, more important, why they were making them.
The manipulator manipulated.
McAuliff sat on the bed, his eyes on the television set, now a travelogue fraught with lies about the «beautiful city of Kingston.» Simultaneously, the radio on the bedside table blared its combination of cacophonic music and frantic commercials for everything from Coppertone to Hertz. Intermittently, there was the syrupy female Voice-of-the-Ministry-of-Health, telling the women of the island that «you do not have to get pregnant,» followed by the repetition of the weather … the forecasts never «partly cloudy,» always «partly sunny.»
Nothing unusual.
Nothing.
It was eleven minutes past twelve London time.
Still nothing.
And then it happened.
«We interrupt this broadcast …»
And, like an insignificant wave born of the ocean depths—unnoticed at first, but gradually swelling, suddenly bursting out of the waters and cresting in controlled fury—the pattern of terror was clear.